A Dickensian Christmas

An Old-fashioned Christmas Card

Look! It’s snowing, and the coach
drives boldly in. Wheels leave
light blue rivulets on white.
Portly coachmen, nicely wrapped,
blow boisterously on long brass horns.
‘Holoo! Holoo! We’re here!’ they call.
And there strut the beaus
in close-fitting tail-coats, toppers atilt,
gold cane-tops all sparkle and shine.
On their arms – oh! – their ladies,
peeping through bonnets,
all snug in their tippets and muffs.
There’s young Captain Fauntleroy!

And the prim Miss FitzDaisy!
These ladies and gentlemen are smiling for us
fine eighteen-thirtyish smiles.

Through a shop’s bulging panes
some small children gaze. Their faces
we don’t see. Not the pallor of cheeks,
nor their dark rings of eyes,
nor, so often wanting, so seldom assuaged –
those mouths. Merely urchins, Yer Honour;
just street-fry, cor lummy! Only 

whippets emerged from their slum!
For the genteel sweeping by
they’ve deference in mind;
though the crowd doesn’t heed them one bit.
(But the Captain, to widen Mis FitzDaisy’s eyes,
directed some small-shot of wit).
Well, Good Sir, have a care… and sense
that despair which if injured can foster distrust
– disrespect, and despisal, oh yes, if you must –

for a cocksure toff in his topper,
and his madam in tippet and muff.


(From ‘Journeys in Time’)



This was one of the earliest poems I penned (pencilled, actually) in the first of my adult beginning-to-jot years. I was never happy with it, and after toying with it from time to seldom time over many decades, gave up making anything out of it. I gave it one final go, though, as I’ve nothing else with an outright Christmas theme.

The inspiration came from the kind of Christmas cards we used to see a lot, though it seams not so much now, when many cards are ‘jokey’, and greetings are for ‘the season’; often for the Winter Solstice. Regarding the times and the inevitable change they bring about, and the emendations and the looking back to which we’re prone, I suppose that’s understandable. But we’ll never, I think, stop seeing cards every year depicting the nativity of Jesus, Father Christmas/Santa Claus and depth-of-winter snow scenes. The cards I’m referring to are ones (I remember there used to be so many of them) with scenes from 18th/19th century town streets, with thick snow everywhere, gentlemen in top hats and top-boots, ladies in bonnets and furs, brightly lit house and shop windows, etc. I’m thinking particularly of one card I received which, because quite taken by the scene, I kept for years. It showed just such a scene, with the stagecoach noisily arriving, a red-coated officer out with his lady friend among happy passers-by, and two drab children, viewed from behind, looking into a shop window. The panes of this window were the small square ‘bubbled’ kind of those days and in the brightly-lit display within were the most wonderful dolls and doll’s houses for the girls, Nutcracker soldiers for the boys, red-and-white striped candy canes for both, and much else beyond the dreams of poor children. The young army officer – and it is undeniably he – with his companion, can be seen elsewhere, on the boxes of ‘Quality Street’ chocolates, which have been going for a long time. There he wears a shako, and carries a straight-edged sword, so most likely belongs to an infantry regiment. But how much more jolly and romantic to be togged-out in the uniform of a cavalry regiment back then, and wear one of those outrageous Gilbert & Sullivan busby-type hats of felt and fur covered with bits of brass, a gold-braided pelisse flung casually over one shoulder, and a sabre with which to slash away either at those confounded Frenchies at Waterloo [* my 2nd great-uncle John fell at Waterloo: Yes, I remember it was Platform 3 and he swore like a trooper] or at the mixed, milling crowd of civilians at Carmarthen Workhouse in 1843 (it didn’t matter which). Yes, he would have been an infantryman, a Grenadier perhaps. The marching song of my old regiment was ‘The British Grenadier’ [*the marching tune for all Grenadier and Fusilier regiments whose badge features a flaming fusil or grenade] – a regiment staggering under battle honours and the colours shot through and through, I may add – although I never did storm the palisades or see our little drummer-boy fall, shot through the heart. For viewers of a military bent in the United States the equivalent would be the marching song of the U.S. Marine Corps: ‘From the Halls of Montezuma’, etc. – the tune of which can be nicely sung, when among a large responsive crowd in expansive mood, to the words of ‘Calon Lân’. But this is to digress. Wait, though – about fusils; flank officers were allowed to carry shortened muskets called just that, or sometimes ‘fusees’. Short carbines, then; which is probably why the renowned and imposing carabinieri have a large-flamed fusil as their badge. Splendid uniforms, and a fine sight striding two abreast along Italian pavements/sidewalks. Oh, and except to say that all those swords were made by the Wilkinson Sword company, which today makes our safety razor blades. 



I’ve tried to keep the tone ‘Victorian’ through various devices, mostly through description and vocabulary. ‘Cor Lummy!’ is London slang derived from ‘Lord love me’. A related favourite I’d liked to have also used but could not find a place for is ‘Lawks-a-mercy!’ which found its way into London jargon via ‘Lord have mercy’. I should mention ‘despisal’, too, a word I like. Through one of the many quirks in the evolution of the English language no specifically accepted noun-form exists for ‘despise’. My thoughts went back in a sure jiffy of confirmation, though, to Francis Thompson’s lovely poem To a Snowflake, which I learned at school:

‘What heart would have thought you? -

Past our devisal
(O filigree petal!)
Fashioned so purely,
Fragilely, surely,
From what Paradisal
Imagineless metal,
Too costly for cost?
Who hammered you, wrought you,
from argentine vapour? –
‘God was my shaper.
Passing surmisal,

He hammered, he wrought me,

From curled silver vapour
To lust of His mind:-
Thou could not have thought me!
So purely, so palely,
Tinily, surely,
Mightily, frailly,
Insculped and embossed,
With His hammer of wind,
And His graver of frost.’


Devisal, surmisal… despisal.


That class-consciousness is at the core of the poem is self-evident, and serves to outline the ambivalence, the benevolence toward and disregard for, the poorer classes which existed in Victorian society. So, what light is shed upon the two principal characters? How are we to look upon Captain Fauntleroy and Miss FitzDaisy? Their names, to begin with, carry a certain humorous mockery, and the final couplet emphasizes this sort of light disdain in a wholly strident way. They are people, as can be seen, ‘of the first fashion’ – ‘posh’ people. The Captain is indubitably a toff, but that Miss FitzDaisy is termed his ‘madam’ his a ring to it that may be a bit unfair. Let’s take it that the remark which the poem’s unknown external observer elucidates from a child’s resentment means simply that she is also regarded as one of the ‘hoity-toity’. I like to think of her as a young lady much like the good, honest Amelia of Vanity Fair, and that a few steps along the street, out of earshot of the children, she firmly chided Fauntleroy for his remarks and that he was penitent and sheepish for at least the next five minutes, after which he, mustering his trampled thoughts, had it that he only said what he said ‘out of tricks’. Can we believe him? Possibly. One of his kind, the Captain, doubtlessly imbued with sufficient amour-propre from his good upbringing and the public school bonhomie of the Mess to steer through minor faux pas with young ladies (three in a row, by Jove!). Still, we don’t really know him; he might be a nice enough young fellow. I’ve no doubt that he had all the makings of a capable and courageous officer of the line.


There’s s a name for poetry which is motivated by pictures – ekphrasis, and ekphrastic verse appears to be presently enjoying a new popularity. Old photographs and postcards serve as good prompts. All those years ago when I first started work on this poem, I had no idea that I was writing ekphrastic poetry.


Postscript: There is one other Christmas-related poem on The Igam-Ogam Mabinogion, titled ‘The Funny Five Days’ which appeared on December 30, 2020. It features a collection of humorous verse by Jenni Wyn Hyatt (Williams), Steffan Balsom and Dafydd Hughes Lewis.